Blame criminals, not guns

By Rick Gillit

Posted
3/2/13

My response to Diana DeGette's article in the opinion section of the Englewood Herald titled “Time for reasonable action on guns”:

All Americans can agree that Sandy Hook, the Aurora shooting, and many other violent crimes in our recent news are sickening and tragic. I cannot imagine the torment these families who lost loved ones must feel to lose their family member in such a needless way. Violence of all kinds need to be reduced, especially ones that take innocent lives. But can we look at the true cause of these violent crimes? Bad people!

People blame guns for these incidents as if the guns woke up one day and said, I need to shoot someone. Can we please look at the true culprit of violence, it is the “offender” using the gun, knife, vehicle or other objects. To blame the death on guns is akin to blaming Ford for making cars that run into and kill people all by themselves! Can we quit blaming objects and start blaming the people who cause these crimes? Millions of innocent people in our country handle guns every day with no issue or crime. A few bad people cause bad and senseless crimes! We want more laws to strip the rights of law-abiding citizens while not enforcing the ones we already have. Seems silly!

Ms. DeGette, more laws will not stop violent crimes, especially deadly shootings; Chicago is proof of that. Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the country yet it is the highest in violent crimes. Hmmmm — maybe we need to look at the criminals, not the guns. Yes, guns are used in crimes as well as knives and even glass bottles. We also know that cars are also used in more deaths every month than the Americans that died in battle in the whole Afghanistan war! Are we going to ban vehicles, of course not, because that would be silly! So is putting more restrictions on guns! It is silly!

One other thing Ms. DeGette, can we please use accurate reporting. An AR-15 was not used at the Sandy Hook massacre. It was handguns. Even the left-leaning MSNBC reported that. Not that that makes it better, but many of our extreme liberal representatives like Ms. DeGette keep propagating a falsehood about AR-15s, especially that an AR-15 was used at Sandy Hook — it was not! AR-15s are actually responsible for very few reported crimes in our country. Knives and handguns are the weapon of choice for most bad guys. Lets try and keep them out of bad guys' hands! Now that's an idea I can sink my teeth into!

So what can we do? Well, Ms. DeGette, we can start funding mental health care, continue with background checks as we have already been doing in Colorado, and maybe even have some government sponsored gun safety classes. Imagine the idea of actually teaching people how to properly handle weapons and not demonize them for owning them! Remember, the Second Amendment said “it shall not be infringed”! Let's keep it that way!

Just a thought!

Rick Gillit is a resident of Englewood, where he represents District 4 on the city council.